Refugee Quarters in Geneva
- Sabine Drey
In the cosmopolitan district round the League of Nations building in Geneva, the refugee quarters in the Parc Rigot immediately catch the eye as a modular timber development. The public areas about the two structures are used both by the pupils of the neighbouring Collège Sismondi and the people from the crisis regions. The buildings were the outcome of the need to provide 370 refugees with a roof over their heads as quickly as possible. A prefabricated modular development suggested itself, since this allowed the saving of time not only through rapid assembly, but also through the construction of the foundations on site and the simultaneous prefabrication of the modules. Two parallel five-storey strips were created with 230 prefabricated timber units, reached via access galleries. The Acau Architecture team developed a form of construction that can be dismantled and re-erected elsewhere after 10 years. Only the wooden pile foundations would remain in place. The exploitation of local timber resources was a condition for the implementation of the scheme. At the very beginning, foresters and sawmills in the area calculated the quantity of oak that would be available for the facade, and the planning team optimized the construction details to minimize offcuts of wood. This resulted in the systematization of timber boarding to a single cross-sectional dimension of 25 × 130 mm and the development of two regular standard for balustrades, cladding and sliding shutters.
